


One Year Later

by Lunarium



Series: SSSS: Saga of the Mages (aka Mageverse) [9]
Category: Stand Still Stay Silent
Genre: Loneliness, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-07
Updated: 2017-03-07
Packaged: 2018-09-30 16:44:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 804
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10167392
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lunarium/pseuds/Lunarium
Summary: It’s been almost a year since the expedition has ended, and Lalli tries to get hold of one he had regrettably pushed away.





	

**Author's Note:**

> For Synchronized Screaming's second week of challenge. Prompt was "Reynir/Lalli - keeping in touch through dreams."

Absence greeted him in the dark entrance of his apartment, joined by the ever-present silent cold. The rising sun over the horizon cast her rays as impersonally as she had the day before, the dawn terrible and ugly as the comforts of the dark were lifted, exposing Lalli to his reality he must face before burying himself under his bed. 

Work shift had ended. He was alone, back in the place he once called his place of residence (‘home’ was too ridiculously saccharine of a term.) He could not return here as if nothing remarkable had occurred out there beyond the borders of his birth country many months ago. And yet here he was, back to the mundane life dragging his feet through mud every night in pitiful attempts to outrun the ghosts he could not, and did not wish to, evade. The ghosts were where all that remained of _him_ ; even if the ghosts of the past carried the burdens of Lalli’s own actions which he now regretted, Lalli clung to them. It was all he had of him. 

He got to sleep without first feeding himself. He had no appetite, and there was no time. The sun would reach Iceland soon, and he needed to search again. But as before, his efforts were in vain. He was left standing atop a rock in the swooshing dream-sea, staring into the nothingness in the direction where Reynir’s Haven once stood. How near that boy always was, under a sky where both their words could be understood by the other, but Lalli seldom took the chance. The intensity of his feelings for Reynir went in both directions, but he regrettably learned all too late that love and hate could be one and the same. 

He called out for Reynir, again and again and again. 

They had kissed. They managed a few adventures together, worked together. He had opened himself to Reynir, fully, allowed him deeper into his soul and embrace than any was ever allowed. He hadn’t taken Reynir all for granted. Yet in the end he had still pushed him away. Such a good man, let go. 

The wind howled above the black dream-sea. Stupid, stupid, silly Lalli. 

It had been over one year since Lalli had pushed Reynir away. One year since the return to Finland, since that heartfelt conversation with Tuuri that later revealed that his cousin and now friend had been invited to move in with her girlfriend in Norway. He could not blame her, considering what the alternative was. Here was no longer home for either of them. They each resided in the hearts of another. But Tuuri was smarter. She got out as soon as she could to be with the one she loved. Lalli returned to a place he no longer felt part of. 

And in that year since Lalli realized what it had meant for him: that fellow former colleague Mikkel had returned to live with his wife, back on his farm to a life of happiness; and another former colleague and friend, Emil, was starting a new life with a love he had met after the expedition. Everyone was moving on, growing, starting afresh. They did not return to what once was. 

Yet Lalli was stuck here. Alone. The only one of the group to be back home alone. For he had no doubt Reynir was loved among family and his new mentor in the field of magic. And possibly by now he had met a new lover. Who wouldn’t fall in love with Reynir Árnason? 

The thought of him in the arms of another fueled anger and a jealousy raging through his veins, but Lalli pushed the feelings away. _Don’t be like the kade_ , Lalli begged himself. _If Reynir winds up with another, it was because you had pushed him in that direction. If the crew ever reunites, and everyone shares photos and stories of their families and loved ones, you will be the only one with nothing to share. Because you will have been alone, as you have this past year and in the years to come._

He jolted up awake, panting heavily. The tears he was unable to stop as they trickled down his face. More than a year had passed. Would it take that long for Reynir to move on? Did Lalli still have a chance? He could not reach him in dreams, but…perhaps—and the thought alarmed and excited him, for it would be so reckless and foolish to throw his entire life away at this one opportunity, not to mention how enraged Onni would be once he found out what Lalli did, but he would be damned if he did not do what Tuuri had done for him two years ago—perhaps there was another way to contact Reynir.


End file.
